Usage & Distribution Guidelines

Testing guidelines

• Restart the computer before running the benchmark. Wait for at least 5 minutes before running the benchmark to ensure all startup activities have finalized.
• Exit all other programs.
• Under the 32-bit Windows operating systems, other tasks can preemptively run during the tests, thus affecting the results. You will want to eliminate as many of these types of tasks as possible, such as automatic updates in operating systems, e-mail clients or other tasks from your StartUp folder. This action also maximizes your available memory.
• Disable all file sharing and possibly also all network connections. Background network activity may affect results. You can submit your results even if you run the benchmark without network connection. Save your results in the default format (.pcr) and restart your system with network connection after the benchmark run. Run PCMark05 and submit your saved result by selecting the 'Submit Saved Result' item in the right click menu (open the right click menu by right clicking the PCMark05 main window).
• Follow a standard testing procedure each time you run the tests. Run the tests at least three times to verify that the results are reproducible.
• Before running the HDD tests, the target drive should be first defragmented in order to receive accurate results.
• Priority of the PCMark05 process should not be changed. By default it is "Normal" and that is what should be used.

Publishing benchmark results

Default scores

Distribution guidelines